


A Far, Far Better Thing

by Hedgi



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Gen, I'm not actually an HR fan but I had to write this, Introspection, Literary References & Allusions, Self-Sacrifice, all aboard the pain train, reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 16:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11361393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hedgi/pseuds/Hedgi
Summary: All he wanted was a place to fit, a chance to be something more.And now he is. This is his choice, his role, his part to play.A writer knows the order of things as well as a hero does, and heroes are meant to die.HR-death introspective fic





	A Far, Far Better Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pennflinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennflinn/gifts).



> Title from "A tale of two cities" "it is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever know."
> 
> Quotes in the text from Peter S Beagle's The Last Unicorn

It’s only fair. Funny, this is the sort of thing people call unfair when they face it. Death. Sacrifice. Loss. He knows that all too well, not really from experience, but second hand. From watching, from writing, from reading letters from brokenhearted fangirls asking why his latest novel ended the way it did. Unfair, unfair, unfair, but it’s not, not really. Not this. He’s the reason that this day didn’t just end peaceful, _and they lived happily ever after_ , that Savitar found her where she was hidden. And he’s the reason for so much more than that. If he’d been better, been smarter, maybe he could have helped. What has he been good for, other than fetching coffee and giving peptalks? Not much. He’s always been the weakest link, and he knows it. He clutches at the drumstick, the wood warm in his hand, and comforting. Maybe it was never his destiny to do anything great.

This world, this place, this was his chance for a fresh start, a world where he could be someone new, and what did he do with it? He lied, he hid, he pretended. He said all the wrong things and he knew that, but no one ever said what the right things might be and he never tried hard enough, he knows that. He could have been what they needed. But he never was. He should have done better. What was it Cisco said, that he was dependable, there when they needed him most? It wasn’t true. But he can make it true. Here, now, he can make it true.

Now, at last, is a part he can play. This is not something it takes a genius brain to understand. What is a writer if not one who takes roles, who slips into characters and holds them as long as the plot demands? There is no skill to fake here. This, he can do. Someone has to die. That much is plain. If Traci’s weapon falters, if all the desperate plans fail, someone has to die. It cannot be any of these people, who took him in for nothing in return. Who risked their lives, and for what, for him? They all have lives. Families and futures.

Besides. He was the one in the position to make the choice, to play the part. No one else. He is not much of a hero, but he is all that is at hand for this.

Iris West, wearing his face, pinned down under all empty boxes, disappears from view as someone he had once hoped to call a friend leads him into the warehouse. He should be afraid. This is the time for fear, for desperation to keep living. Instead, relief settles inside him. Iris is safe. Iris will survive, and BA will stop Savitar. The future is changeable, after all. He should have guessed that, from the way his own fate altered. He should have died months ago, on his own earth. He had made peace with that. That his death is here now, he can live with. Or not, rather. That is, after all, the point of this, his sitting quietly, waiting for the appointed hour, wearing the identity of someone far more important in the grand scheme of things.

He tries not to think of Tracy. _We can love but what we lose—what is gone is gone._ The bit of song he can’t recall the name of floats through his head. What poems might he have written for her, if they’d had more time. But there’s no point wondering now. She will be brilliant. Iris will be brilliant. If his sacrifice is the cost, so be it.  And then the time comes. It will all be over soon, and while there is a chance that the sun will rise with no blood spilled, that is the kind of thing that only happens in fairytales, and only in some of them.

Some memory flits up to the surface as he looks at BA, desperate and angry and sad and so in love. He wonders what his reaction will be, to discover Iris alive and whole. He wishes he could see it. A line from a book, a line he never had the mastery to write just barely stays on his tongue, not slipping over. _What use is wizardry if it cannot save a unicorn? That is what heroes are for. Heroes are meant to die for unicorns._

He never was much of a hero, for all he’d have liked to be. But he can die like one, and writers know the order of things as well as heroes do. This is how the story has to end. At last, his dream, to do something great. To be part of something grand, no longer for his own sake, but for what it will mean. He’s ready. He holds his head high until he can’t anymore.  His chest, his side, his lungs feel like flame. He had thought death would be faster than this. He had not expected chance to say goodbye.

All he can feel now is the catching of air in one lung, even the pain dulled and fading, and part of him tries to hold on to the sensation, to fit it into words so he can better write—but that doesn’t matter, now or ever again. So instead, he struggles to speak, to explain, to say farewell.

The drumstick clatters on the ground beside him, a final beat.

He had so many more things to put into words.

**Author's Note:**

> please comment, it's good luck


End file.
